


Anything

by palimpsestus



Category: Lost in Space (TV 2018)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Gen, Single Mum, Slow Burn, i could foresee this being an epic fic where they circle around each other for years, meet cute, my precious helium love ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-04-25 21:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14387946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palimpsestus/pseuds/palimpsestus
Summary: 'Anything' was the very first word he ever said to her, and it would be last thing she would ever say to keep him.





	1. Anything

**Author's Note:**

> I can't tell you how much I love the Helium Love ship. Maureen is just wonderful, I could write for her forever. What a geek.

“Anything?”

It was the first thing John ever said to her. It was burned into her memory like the flash of a photograph.

Memories are not perfect. They change every time they’re examined, constructed more from fiction than recollection. Maureen knew that. This memory in particular had been taken out and replayed so many times the edges had become hyper-real. She had recalled the brilliant red of the flowers on the verge so often that the petals had become impossibly vibrant. She had lit John in the golden glow of the sun behind her, while giving him the glorious orange sunset behind him too. The warmth of the breeze on her cheek was so much like a hand’s caress that it no longer resembled the wind on Earth.

It was a single perfect moment.

There was also that moment where he had brought Judy to the hospital to visit her and Penny, and the tiny knot of doubt deep within her gut eased when she saw no flicker of favouritism in his eyes, and he never once seemed to favour his blood over his first daughter.

And there was the moment she saw the letter, and sitting in the car, her fingers cramping she held to the paper so tight . . .

But that first moment had been perfect.

 

“Anything?” the muscle-bound fitness freak in front of her seemed deeply uncomfortable with his proposition and halted his sentence almost before it began. He gestured wanly to Maureen, who was trying to balance baby, bag, and fold the pushchair up out of the way of the rest of the queue for the burrito truck, while Judy cried her little heart out.

“Anything I can do to help?” he finished at last, and Judy drew in enough breath to wail so loudly the rest of the people queuing took a step back.

“Uh,” Maureen, somewhat near tears herself, tried to reach into her bag to grab her phone, only to have it slip deeper beneath layers of clean cloth diapers and baby wipes. She closed her eyes and bit her tongue, about to count back from ten to calm herself, only to be interrupted by Judy howling. “Can you?” she gestured to the baby, and her new companion visibly swallowed his regret and reached for Judy, bringing her to his chest automatically.

Freed of the weight, Maureen began searching her bag in earnest, clamping her hand round her phone. “Thanks. She’s colicky, and hates sitting in the pushchair, I just need to grab myself something to eat and then I’ll be able to feed her and if this path was just a bit wider I could-”

“Why don’t you take her and sit over on that bench, and I get you what you want at the truck?” he suggested, gently bouncing from side to side on the balls of his feet. Judy’s howls had been turned down to a hiccupping complaint, and Maureen felt like she could just about hear herself think.

“That . . . is a much better idea,” she said. She reached for her daughter and dragged the half-folded pushchair towards the bench. The others in the queue looked as though they were about ready to kiss her rescuer, no doubt feeling rescued themselves.

She settled herself on the bench, unfastened her top, and let Judy settle herself on her breast. The pushchair and bag lay abandoned on the grass. Her rescuer was standing by the burrito truck, ordering, and she realised she hadn’t given her phone. The poor guy was buying her lunch.

It made her smile. She’d seen him around. He liked to jog the same circuit around the lake that she walked Judy around. He would often lap her, with a gruff nod when she happened to catch his eye. With his wares from the burrito stand, he crossed the grass towards her, squinting a little in the sun. “I didn’t ask what you wanted,” he said, proffering both, “So I got one veggie and one chicken.” He bumped his hip to the side, revealing a can of soda in the side pocket of his shorts.

“Either is fine,” she smiled up at him. “I can pay you, if you just uh,” she nodded to Judy, latched on to her chest, and her rescuer’s gaze suddenly fastened a good five centimeters above her head.

“Sure, sure,” he said, and circled behind her, ostensibly to set out their lunch on the picnic table.

“I’ve seen you around,” she said. “You’ve been improving your time round the lake.”

“Uh . . . yeah,” he said. After a moment’s silence, punctuated by Judy’s sucking and the birds merrily chirping their songs at one another, he managed, “Well I’d better get back to it. Enjoy your lunch,” and he took off at a near sprint back down towards the lake, not slowing even as he hit the path. He sprinted along the gravel, kicking up spurts of dust behind him, disappearing between the trees.

Maureen ate both burritos.

 

The Burrito Stand Incident was not a failure from lack of effort, but a failure of protocol. From then on, she always kept her phone, and therefore payments and RFID access chips, in her pocket. Now she would be able to juggle Judy in one hand, pay with her phone, and leave the pushchair on the bigger path so it wouldn’t get in the way of other customers.

She saw the kindly runner a few times, but he only acknowledged her with a nod as he continued his pace around the lake. One time she had been sitting breastfeeding again and she couldn’t help a giggle at the thought of developing a crush on a man only five months after giving birth.

And then she didn’t see him for a whole week. She pushed Judy’s stroller around the lake, squinting behind her sunglasses, and studying the faces of the joggers who passed her by.

It was a surprise to find him on one particularly sunny day doubled over against a tree, wheezing and sputtering. She came to a stop, and frowned, waiting him for him to look up and notice her. “I owe you lunch!” she called when he finally clocked her.

He managed a smile, his face grimacing in pain, and the knuckles of his left hand whitening against the tree bark.

“Jesus, you okay?”

“Yep,” he grated out, very slowly easing himself into a standing position.

“Can I buy you lunch?” she asked.

He nodded, his lips a thin line, and he limped towards her. When he planted his running shoes on the gravel path, he straightened up a little more, and hissed in pain. In this part of the lake circuit they were shaded beneath the trees, and Maureen wondered if he’d made it to the shade before collapsing. “Looks like you pushed yourself a little too hard.” They took a step, and then another. Judy peered up at them from the stroller with her rapidly darkening eyes.

“I, uh, got injured. Last week. Thought I might be ready to run, but,” he hissed and put his hand to his side. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologise.” If she was honest, she appreciated the very slow trudge beneath the canopy of leaves. They walked a few slow paces and she piped up, “Was the injury a surprise?”

He furrowed his brows at her.

“I mean, could you have foreseen it in a risk assessment? I ask because I’m an engineer,” she began to gesticulate with her left hand, “I’m getting really interested in how ergonomics can affect utility and-”

“I’m a marine,” he interrupted with an expression so wry it could have parched the earth.

“Ah.” She closed her mouth. “Well . . . was it foreseeable? Preventable?”

He chuckled a little. “Only in the most . . . ironic of ways.”

“That sounds like a story.” She paused to reach down to brush a fly away from Judy’s cheek.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“Well this is Judy Robinson, and she would like to thank you for helping us out the other week. I’m Maureen.”

“John Taylor,” he said. “It was a pleasure to help out.”

Maureen smiled at him, and resumed pushing the stroller along. “It’s an interesting thing, you know? When you have an unhappy baby, suddenly you’re simultaneously invisible and incredibly irritating to everyone around you.”

That made John chuckle, wheezing slightly as he clutched at his ribs.

She leaned a little closer, “Thank you for offering to help,” she said, with faux gravitas in her voice.

John smirked. “Well Judy seemed pretty upset. You’re a lot happier today, little lady.”

Judy took that moment to gaze up into John’s eyes and hiccup up a dribble of white milk. While Maureen wrinkled her nose and wondered quite what to say to this, John nodded sombrely at Judy. “I often have that effect on women, don’t worry,” he said to the baby, who gurgled with beatific contentment.

Maureen resumed pushing and tried to study him from the corner of her eye. There were a hundred and one ways for a marine to injure themselves, but he seemed physically intact, and he hadn’t been gone long. He’d diverted attention from the question deftly, but resolutely. And sometimes her lab took deliveries from the nearby base, and the security protocols were nothing to sneeze at. “I’m serious,” she said, slowing as they approached the end of the tree copse and the sun once more. “I can pay you back for lunch.”

“It was really my pleasure,” he said, and pushed his hand against his side. “Tell you what, maybe on a day I’m less likely to throw up, you can buy me a coffee.”

“That would be lovely, John,” she said, and extended her hand for him to shake. He took her palm in his and applied a light pressure against her knuckles. The freckles across his brows danced when he smiled at her, his fair skin furrowed and marked by the Californian sun. “Really,” she added, because she suspected ‘I fancy you’ was frowned upon in park-friend etiquette.

 

“This is really a problem of logistics,” she said to Judy as she lay her down on the changing mat. She unfastened the hand-sewn Velcro straps on the cloth diaper and peeled it away, grimacing a little at what Judy had produced. “You see, in the normal course of things, if there’s a person who’s attractive, you should tell them and if they also find you attractive, and everyone is amenable, and you’ve usually had something to drink, then you can have -” she cut herself off, her hand hovering over a clean diaper. “Fun.” She tucked the fresh diaper beneath Judy’s hips. “However you do make things slightly more complicated. We wouldn’t want your grandmother to live any closer to us of course, but we are lacking some evening care for you.” With Judy’s nose freshly powdered, Maureen found herself lost for a little while in those big dark eyes that looked up at her with nothing but trust and devotion.

Even today, with everything humanity had achieved, sometimes there were looks askance when she was out and about with her daughter. When someone asked ‘and where’s dad?’ and Maureen had to fix a smile on her face and say ‘he’s not with us I’m afraid’. Sometimes they would assume that meant Judy’s father was dead, and they’d be shocked. Most of the time, Maureen let them believe that. But the rest of the time, people closed their mouths and gave her a sympathetic wince.

One of her mother’s friends had said ‘when he sees what a beautiful girl she is, he’ll come back’, and Maureen had answered ‘Well I hope not, because that’s not our agreement. He has no interest in being a father and that’s fine by me’, before her mother hushed her.

“None of this, you understand, is a reflection on you,” Maureen said, lifting Judy into her arms. “Merely on the situation.” Judy’s tiny, hot little body settled against her chest, a fit that was not perfect by any stretch of design. Evolution was a terrible engineer. But it did feel so right, to keep one hand splayed on Judy’s spine, to cant her hips so she was leaning back just a little, and to carry her like this.

And Maureen’s insides complained, her breasts ached, and she craved a red, rare steak . . .

“Although,” she admitted to Judy, traipsing around the house trying to pick up after herself. She returned to the Moses basket on the floor surrounded by notes and laptop. “We have to recognise some of the variables have changed.” She knelt, slowly, conscious of the parts of her that still were not fully healed. She laid Judy in the basket and crossed her legs, surveying her notes with a sigh. “We may not be able to assume his attraction, like we once would have,” she admitted, her voice sounding high and strained. She smiled, reflexively, and turned her attention to Judy. The smile softened and grew real. Placing her right hand on Judy’s belly, she leaned forward, resuming typing with her left. “And that’s okay too,” she said. “Now. Discussion of rapid depressurisation and its impact on third generation polymers. While this study is theoretical, the high indices of agreement between models suggests …”

 

She spotted or met John in passing around the park a few times that month. They waved to each other, always one leaving – or breastfeeding – as the other arrived. Maureen had no real fixed schedule, following Judy’s needs more than anything else, so she didn’t think twice about it. Only when John was standing beneath the trees late one morning did she wonder, was he waiting for her?

“You’re looking better,” she told him, drawing to a stop so he could come and pay his respects to Judy. “Can I buy you that coffee?”

“If you insist.”

They sat down on one of the picnic benches on the lake’s north side. John had an Americano, she had a decaff cappuccino, swearing blind that left to her own devices she’d have a coffee so tar-like the spoon would stand up in it. “I drink the dregs in the lab,” she admitted. “I’m known for it.”

“What do you research?”

“Well my PhD was in aerospace engineering, but this postdoc is more theoretical about material strengths. It’s not what I love, but, it’s easier to work on theory with this little lady.” She nodded to Judy. The cappuccino was cooler than she would have liked and she found herself drinking quickly, while John nursed his piping hot Americano in a much more civilised fashion.

“Is it the caffeine?” John asked after a moment.

“Hmm?”

“Is that why you chose the cappuccino?”

“Ah. Yeah. The sugar and milk disguises the taste of the decaff.”

“It’s for the baby, yeah?”

“She doesn’t need the caffeine to stay awake. I could stand a little more though.” Occasionally, the conversation would lapse into these strange pauses, where John seemed comfortable with the silence, and Maureen longed to say something like ‘are you seeing anyone’, so she found herself filling the silence with meaningless chatter, “It’s nice to have a friend whose biggest concern isn’t breastmilk, if I’m honest. We’ve just moved to the area and the only friends I have are from the baby group.”

“Where did you live before?”

“Uh I did my PhD at MIT. Lived in a really nice little place. It was a lot cooler.” She chuckled, squinting up at the cloudy sky. “But this place is nice too.”

“Did your partner come with you?”

Somehow, it caught in her chest. She straightened, and inhaled through her nose. “Actually, I don’t have a partner,” she said. “Judy’s father is . . . not a part of this.”

John said nothing to this straight away. He frowned a little, and glanced inside his mug as if checking for a suitable answer.

“Makes me seem a little desperate, doesn’t it,” Maureen heard herself saying, “Like I’m walking round the park looking for friends. I promise I’m not prowling for a future daddy or . . . oh, Gods, what am I saying?” She planted her mug on the picnic table and buried her face in her palms, huffing with laughter at herself. “I don’t know where that came from,” she mumbled through her fingers.

“I was thinking you must be incredibly brave, to move across the country, yourself, with a kid.”

She peered at him, suspicious. John twitched his hand towards her in a little toast. “And if there’s anything I can do to help, I’m happy to be your first non-breastfeeding friend in California.”

Maureen burst in laughter, and collapsed to the table, resting her head on her folded arms.

 

She remembered the way he’d said it so clearly. Even sitting in the car, clutching that blue-cornered envelope so tightly. ‘Anything’. He’d said ‘anything’.

Anything but stay.  


	2. Trials

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This is not a come-on" . . .

“Hey.” Maureen tapped her coffee spoon against her mug, noticing her translucent reflection in the window was grinning. “This isn’t a come-on, I promise. You up to anything this evening?”

There was a slight intake of breath picked up by the speaker, and she imagined John with that inscrutable smile, perhaps with a coffee of his own. “Well I was going to sit around the house waiting for gentleman callers, but if you have a better offer?”

Sometimes, talking to John made her feel like a teenager again. He made her giggle and twirl her hair, or at least, he made it twirl her spoon around in her coffee and marvel at the forces that acted on the black liquid within. “As it happens,” she said, her voice low. “I just might.”

 

When John arrived in the early evening, she opened the door with Judy balanced on her chest, chin on her shoulder, and found herself confronted with John lounging against the door frame. His left arm was raised up above his head, elbow at right-angles and his wrist loose, a thick military-issue tablet watch on his wrist. She’d been coveting the civilian model for a year now. He was wearing his BDUs, an olive t-shirt that was pulled up by his stance, revealing a fracture of skin over his hip between the shirt and his belt.

“You’re in uniform,” she found herself saying, blinking slightly at him. “I don’t . . . I don’t think I’ve seen you in uniform before.”

He leaned forward across the threshold, “Well this is my ‘waiting around for gentlemen callers’ outfit,” and he just as he was about to tip over, he stepped forward, entering her tiny apartment.

“Ain’t that the truth.” Closing the door behind him, she followed into the living room. John had his jacket slung over his shoulder and he tossed it over the back of the sofa as he usually did. He made his way into the kitchenette and started hunting for a clean mug. “Thanks for coming,” she added, settling herself onto the sofa with Judy. The coat smelled vaguely of . . . smoke. Something that hadn’t burned clean. She mentally filed that away in her notes about what exactly John did.

“Not a problem. Coffee?”

“No thanks.”

Armed with fresh caffeine, John wandered over and planted himself by the window, studying the street like he sometimes did. “So what was it you wanted? Finally get Judy’s new cot?”

“Not quite . . .” Her tone made him turn to face her, brows furrowing together. “So you know how I mentioned Judy has a little ear infection?” she announced brightly. “It turns out, she hates the ear drops. So . . . I want you to give her them.”

“What?”

“I want you to give her the ear drops.”

“Are you crazy? I’m not giving her the ear drops, she’ll hate me.”

“Well I can’t give her them because I’m her mother and we’re already on thin ice because I took her to the clinic for her vaccinations. I don’t think our relationship can take another bump.”

“You’re her mother, isn’t that an unconditional sort of love?”

“Have you ever read developmental psychology literature?” Maureen asked darkly.

John didn’t have a response to that, or if he did he thought better of saying it. He paced towards the coffee table and picked up the ear drops. “How have you given them to her earlier? Didn’t you get them on Monday?”

“The mail man,” Maureen answered promptly. “But he’s gotten wise. He refused today.”

Now John was staring at her with the same expression the woman in the nursery had had on her face when Maureen had explained that the strategy she was using to improve Judy’s cognitive skills involved narrating astrophysics papers out loud. It didn’t matter the content of the words, just that babies heard how language was processed so they could start making those connections in their head, and besides, it wasn’t as though Maureen didn’t simplify the words, that was good practice for her never mind Judy, and still the nursery assistant stared at her blankly, much like John was staring at her right now, and . . . the god damned hormones. Maureen could feel tears brimming at the corners of her eyes, and her throat swelling closed. She stared down at Judy, all her energy being channelled into the weak muscles of her eyelids. No crying. It was ridiculous how humans could send themselves into space on nothing more than a barely controlled explosion and yet she couldn’t manage to complete the most basic of human acts, child rearing, without revealing how little like her fellow species she really was . . .

“Hey.”

She glanced up, realising that John was crouched down beside her, one hand on the sofa cushion beside her knee.

“This is hard work,” John said, in a low, sonorous voice that sounded like it was intended to cut through the beginnings of PTSD in the desert. “It’s not supposed to be easy.”

“Well, I’m not sure that’s true,” she managed through a hiccup, almost flinching as John reached for Judy.

He picked Judy up, holding her easily against his chest with one arm. She was tiny against him, and seemed so comfortable on him. With his free hand, John held up the medicine box, studying the back. Carefully, he sat himself down on the sofa beside Maureen. He handed her the box and laid Judy down on his knees, cooing silently down at her as he pulled out the little brown, glass bottle. Maureen drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, watching, helplessly. John splayed one hand over Judy’s stomach, then rolled her slightly to the side. She rested in the valley between his legs, seemingly only a little disconcerted by the position, before he smoothly squeezed the dropper above her ear. Judy let out a single howl, making Maureen wince and screw her eyes shut. Judy started to whimper and cry as the drops worked their way through her ear, and John held her still. With a flick of his wrist, his tablet revealed the time and John studied the digits, waiting for the minute to elapse, soothing Judy’s howls with gentle strokes of his fingers against her back. He reached over to place his other hand on Maureen’s knee. When the minute ticked over, he lifted Judy back up to his chest, and murmured something insensible to Maureen’s ears.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, watching them.

“How much longer does she need them for?”

“Until the end of the week.”

“Okay then.” Judy had given up crying and now was only sniffling in a slightly betrayed fashion, and John held her up, his arms outstretched, and she began to gurgle. “All forgiven?” he asked Judy, very seriously, and then he handed her over to Maureen. “You had dinner yet?”

 

 

Her phone rang while she was in the office. She reached for it absently, holding the rectangular metal between her ear and cheek as she continued typing, “You can either be about to bring me donuts or a perfectly written grant application, otherwise I’m not interested.”

“I was going to offer to buy you dinner.”

“Don’t say anything,” she ordered, hammering out a final sentence and collapsing back in her chair with a groan.

“Can I speak now?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Ugh.” She ran her free hand over her face. “I have just written the biggest pile of crap anyone ever wrote in order to win more money. But I’ve stopped now. And I _am_ listening. You want to buy me dinner?”

“Ah, well, technically Senator Scolley and his wife are buying me dinner and they’re assuming I’ll bring a guest.”

“Oh.” Maureen flickered her eyes open and glanced round at the nervy little post-doc who shared her office. “Scolley’s a prick, though, you know that right?”

John chuckled. “Yes. And I don’t like it any more than you do, but it would be very good for me to go to this hideous dinner in Scolley’s house, and it would be even better if I brought a charming and attractive friend along with me. I’ll pay for a babysitter.”

“Do I have to pretend to support Scolley’s policies?”

“No. But you would have to pretend that you voted for him.”

Maureen laughed and the post-doc flinched. She kicked her feet up onto the desk. “Okay. Do I have to wear a pretty dress?”

“Preferably something slinky so no one will turn the conversation back to politics.”

“Oh my god,” Maureen dropped her voice low, “Do you want me to be a bimbo?”

“Oh, _no_ ,” John drawled right back, “Only distracting.”

“Well that I can do. When and where?” After a short exchange of the details, Maureen hung up and regarded her half-written grant proposal with a sigh. She heaved to her feet, grabbing the handful of empty coffee mugs off her desk and hooking her finger through the handles. “Want me to get you anything from the kitchen?” she asked her office-mate.

The post-doc shook his head. “Was that your partner?” he asked. “You were twirling your hair.”

“No, just a friend,” Maureen assured him, heading into the corridor. But . . . was she? Should she ask? That was ridiculous. John probably had plenty of friends he could happily invite to a dinner, but none who looked quite so in need of a decent night as she did.

 

They say ‘don’t think about pink elephants’, and the moment the post-doc asked the question, it was all she could think of. In her tiny little apartment, she did her makeup and hair while feeding Judy. She handed the baby off to her babysitter and donned a scandalously tight emerald dress that had been a little gapey around the chest until recent developments, and she couldn’t help but smile at the babysitter’s raised eyebrows and widened eyes. She checked her reflection in the mirror, and took a deep breath.

The door chimed and the babysitter got up. “No, no,” Maureen halted her. “I can get my own door. Besides, I don’t really want Judy to see him because she always cries when he leaves.” She stooped to kiss Judy’s head. “You be good, sweetheart.”

At the door, she took another little moment, sucking her stomach just as little as she opened the door, hoping that this was not as ridiculous as the tiny voice in the back of her mind warned her it was. Here she was, a twenty-eight-year-old single mother in a bargain basement dress, working herself up over a sympathy date from a man who was much too nice for his own good.

John was standing there in a tux, freshly shaven and hair trimmed, looking a little more like James Bond than he had any right to, and staring at her in a way that suggested she looked far from ridiculous. Maureen cocked her hips to the side and tilted her head, smirking, “This is okay, right?”

John swallowed, his throat bobbing beneath the white starched collar of his shirt, and he held his arm out. “You look great,” he said, “Scolley won’t remember your eye colour.”

“Well if that helps the glorious cause,” Maureen teased, looping her arm through his.

On the drive, John prepped her like this was a mission, which she supposed it was for him. Scolley was on a committee which oversaw some of John’s more experimental work, although tonight was not intended to be anything about that, John’s CO had tasked him with an extension on their funding. “God I wished I worked on more government contracts,” Maureen had chuckled.

“Well if you play your cards right . . .”

The Scolleys lived in the kind of house Maureen had always imagined senators lived in. It was overly giant, with an odd mishmash of architectural styles on the front. In the foyer, a young gentleman wearing black took her coat. Scolley’s wife greeted them, and did at least manage to meet Maureen’s eyes once, and Maureen followed John through a maze of what seemed like half a dozen interconnected living rooms – each decorated in a different version of ‘colonial’ – until John seemed to find a clique of people who looked as uncomfortable as he did in formal wear.

“Maureen, my CO Major McGuinness,” John said, gesturing to the short blonde in a golden dress who shook Maureen’s hand warmly, “her partner Liz, and this is Sergeant Finn, and Lieutenant Caspa who’s army but we don’t hold it against him.”

Maureen shook their hands in turn, and smiled at Caspa. “I’m a civvy, so please don’t hold that against me.”

“No, ma’am,” Caspa assured her.

Liz leaned in a little, “There’s a woman who walks around occasionally to take a drink order. There’s better service here than in any restaurant I eat in.”

Maureen couldn’t quite remember the last time she’d had a drink. Her mouth watered at the thought.

“So, you’re the famous Maureen,” Major McGuinness said, narrowing her eyes slightly at John who looked distinctly trapped.

“Famous?” Maureen took John’s arm again, grinning up at him, “Oh, he talks about me, does he?”

“Very rarely, which is more than he talks about anything else.”

John grimaced and shook his head, “This is an exaggeration.”

McGuinness, eyes glittering as she studied her prey, shook her head slowly. “No, no, that’s not an exaggeration at all. I’ve never heard Taylor talk about anyone outside of work for any length of time ever. He mentioned _you_ twice.” McGuinness took a drink while the little crowd chuckled at John’s expense. “I even think he might have referenced you a further three times, but these were vague mentions and it may also have been a stray cat.”

“Hey,” John seemed to need to defend himself, or Maureen, so Maureen squeezed his arm gently.

“That was definitely me,” she cut in, “I just moved to the area and John bought me lunch one time when I was having a bad day. Been following him around ever since.”

McGuinness smiled widely, and gave John a knowing look, before she squared her shoulders. “Right. We have to form a strategy. We move in pairs. If you see someone trapped without their buddy you must rescue them. If you find yourself flagging drop _Rochambeau_ and return to this corner. We will man this corner with at least one person at all times and have a rotational rest system. Is that clear?”

“Sir, yes sir!” came the hushed whispers of her crew.

McGuinness knocked back her drink. “Move out.”

They say no plan survives first contact with the enemy, but McGuinness kept them functioning as they circled through the rooms lined with giant mahogany book cases. While listening to a pair of spouses discuss the best nursery, Maureen surreptitiously brushed a finger tip down a dusty law volume, wondering if it had ever been read by its owners. In the paler, more romantic colonial living room she heard John’s soul crack in half as he explained his PT was not quite a workout to a hedge fund kid in an overpriced tuxedo. She kept hearing snippets of conversation as she moved between the spouses and the military holdouts in the room, conversations about rockets, space and funding that turned her head, even when John made a beeline for the nearest wall. But they all made it into the dining room where John pulled out a chair for Maureen to sit in with far more practiced smoothness than she expected from him. He sat to her left, and on her right was an older man she had gathered was a private contractor, but hadn’t figured out much more.

Over the main course, a greasy, bland lamb roast, the gentleman to her right’s conversation turned to aeronautics. Maureen couldn’t help listening in, a chunk of grey lamb speared, forgotten, on her fork.

“The next step is a Luna base, it’s simply that NASA has been underfunded,” her neighbour was saying, gesturing with his hand towards Scolley at the head of the table. “We need to engineer solutions for space, and the best place to do that is the moon.”

“I disagree,” Maureen said, and her neighbour’s gaze snapped in her direction. As did Scolley’s, and a few of the others, including a woman who sat across from Maureen. At that moment, the woman’s face jogged a memory in Maureen’s mind of a conference in Germany, that woman sitting in the front row with a Lockheed Martin lanyard.

The contractor smiled at her, a little paternalistically. “Why’s that, Mrs . . . ?”

Maureen thought it a credit to herself that she considered letting it go. She could smile and demur and John’s career would continue, unharmed by the evening. Except, she was sitting at a table of aerospace engineers, politicians, and military. She could do nothing, or she could do what she was born to do.

“Doctor Robinson, but you can call me Maureen,” she said, and smiled. “The moon is both too close and too far for a base. So much of engineering is not about the math but about the people. We might as well make our first colony in a decent gravity well, like Mars, solve the real mathematical problems at the same time as we solve the human ones. If we can’t be confident we can protect someone when they’re as far away as Mars then we’ve no business sending them.”

Out of the corner of her eye she could see John grinning into his tumbler of whisky. Maureen popped her fork into her mouth, prayed her lipstick was still as bright red as it had been in the powder room earlier, and chewed on her lamb.

The Lockheed Martin woman leaned forward. “I remember you from Munich, Maureen. Your work was fascinating.”

“Thank you,” Maureen nodded her head.

“But if I recall correctly, your talk was framed around a fantasy colony on Titan, rather than anything achievable within our lifetimes.”

Maureen hesitated. “Why is that a fantasy?” she asked, quietly. “Everything I talked about could be applied on Titan, or Mars, or . . . hell, the desert out back beyond the home owner’s association.” That raised a small laugh, mostly from the military end of the table. “But humanity needs to . . . to dream.” She found herself looking up at the chandelier suspended over the table groaning with food. “We need to want something, to make it happen. Technology doesn’t develop linearly because there’s not a pathway of logical steps to innovation. Innovation happens because you want something, and you find a way to get it. That’s why we sent Neil Armstrong to the moon with less tech than is that pretty watch of yours.”

There was a moment of silence, before the contractor and the Lockheed Martin employee exchanged a look. The contractor turned to her. “Tell me about your research, again?”

 

John draped her coat over her shoulders as they were caught in the press of people trying to exit the house. Scolley’s wife was saying something to Liz, and McGuinness looked as though she might explode if she wasn’t allowed to leave right away. John’s hands rested on Maureen’s shoulders for just a moment, and she was sure McGuinness clocked it.

The outside air was pleasantly cool, and Maureen tilted her face to the stars, walking slowly down the gravelled drive to where the cars waited. McGuinness fell into step with her. “You were perfect,” she said. “You can come again.”

Maureen grinned and stopped in front of John’s car. McGuinness and her partner said their goodbyes, Liz kissing Maureen’s cheek warmly, and McGuinness copying her a moment later. Liz kissed John’s cheek too, and whispered something that made him blush in the pale light from the house. Couple by couple, people got into their cars and the electric engines began to hum. John waited for Maureen to get in before he did, and he hit the autopilot immediately, leaning back in his chair. Maureen kicked her heels off and folded her legs up underneath her, smoothing her skirt down.

“You are really terrible at the social climbing,” she told him, and he grinned.

“You were pretty damned good at it,” he told her, unbuttoning his bowtie and shirt. The car pulled onto the highway and began to zip beneath the lights. “Thank you for coming.”

She shrugged. “Any time.” She turned her head to watch the lights.

“I had no idea you were such a romantic either,” John added.

She did not look back at him. That felt much too dangerous.


	3. Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone needs to be needed

The early fall turned to a late winter, but eventually even Maureen had to admit the weather had turned cold. She still took her walks around the park with Judy, but they wrapped up warm when they paused at the picnic benches to discuss the love lives of the ducks on the lake. She was doing exactly this, as well as narrating some of the more peculiar laws of aviation, when she noticed a woman approaching. Without make-up, and in a particularly bulky coat, it took a moment for her to recognise Liz.

“Hello!” she announced, when she made the connection, and Liz beamed, offering a slight finger wave.

“I thought that was you,” Liz responded, peering into the buggy and immediately making the ‘baby face’. She pursed her lips and widened her eyes, exaggerating each facial feature in a way that evolution seemed to have designed adult humans to do, and Judy, predictably, gurgled happily up at her.

“This is Judy,” Maureen said, watching with a smile as her daughter charmed yet another stranger. “She quite likes cuddles from obliging people.”

“Oh, does she now,” Liz said in a purring voice, reaching in to lift Judy up. She sat on the bench beside Maureen, bouncing Judy on her knee. “You are just darling, aren’t you?”

Maureen rested her elbows on the table and watched. It never failed to amaze her how people reacted to new life. Some people didn’t necessarily want to hold it, but she was yet to meet someone who didn’t at least look into Judy’s eyes and wonder how humanity managed to survive as a species when they spent so much time unable to reliably grasp a finger in their fists. Liz didn’t have John’s easy confidence with Judy, but Judy was still happy to try and grab at Liz’s dangling earrings.

After a little time, Liz handed Judy back, and smoothed her palm over her hair, fixing the little elements that Judy had pulled out of place. Maureen, who couldn’t honestly say whether she still had a little bit of babyspit on her undershirt, hid a smile. She returned Judy to the pram and twitched cuddly rabbit over the side so Judy would forget about the ignominy of no longer being held.

“Sara and I were talking about you just the other night,” Liz was saying, and it took Maureen a moment to link ‘Sara’ with the glittering Major McGuinness in the golden gown.

“Good things, I hope?”

“Yes, definitely. You know how hard they’ve been working lately. Sara wanted to do a little thing, maybe go out for a dinner or, let’s face it. She wanted to do drinks. We hoped you’d join us?”

“Well, if it’s okay with John, I’d love to. Not seen much of him lately.”

Liz’s brows knitted together for a brief moment before she composed herself and started making an observation about the traffic lately. Maureen carried on as though she didn’t notice the hesitation. Another person who made the same assumption. On top of shy post-doc, her babysitter, and the barista at _Toffee Latte_ , she was confident in calling it a pattern.

 

Later that week, John asked if he could give her number to Liz, and then a few days later she was added to a group chat that was debating a trip to the latest local start-up brewery.

_John Taylor: Not sure about that._

Maureen had to hold her phone at an awkward angle, with Judy sleeping on one shoulder and her paper draft balanced on her knee. She was slow to type, and so John was able to get another full sentence in.

_John Taylor: A brewery isn’t exactly family friendly._

_Sam Finn: Well they actually have a non-alcoholic brew_

_Liz McGuinness: Shit! Forgot about Judy – sorry Maureen :( :( :(_

_Sara McGuinness: Good point, John, there’s still the homemade cheesecake shop!_

_Mig Caspa: Oh god no_

_[Unknown Number]: I am still okay with the cheessaeke_

_[Unknown Number]: Cheesecake!_

_You: I’m happy to go to the brewery, honest!_

_John Taylor: Are you sure?_

_You: My babysitter needs to go through college too  ;)_

_Sara McGuinness: No soldier left behind, Maureen._

_You: Judy thanks you for the invitation, but she’s fine. She wants her momma to have a grown up evening for once!_

And it was just like that that Maureen found herself bundled into the back of a rented autocar squeezed in between John and Sara, with Liz on Sara’s other side. Mig, Sam, and Mig’s pretty girlfriend Nina sat in the rear-facing seats. More than a few of the party had brought extra canvas bags for the haul they were anticipating. Coats and bags were strewn on the cabin floor. Maureen was quite neatly tucked against John’s side. She was forming a sincere respect for Liz’s ability to manipulate a social situation, as the woman had somehow managed to push John into the cab first so he took the back seat by the window, and he naturally turned in to face the room as Maureen had taken the seat beside him. He’d ended up half hugging her by default. His ribs were warm against her spine, even through the layers of clothes between them.

She had to admit that most of the conversation passed her by on the hour it took to drive to the brewery. She laughed regularly enough for her cheeks to be aching, but all she would remember of that trip in the years to come was the exact form of John’s side against her back, and the moments when the car banked and his arm brushed against her shoulders.

She remembered that cab ride in their cramped family quarters on the _Resolute_ , when John sat beside her at the table. He sat heavily, throwing his weight about like he did when he was feeling guilty, and he made Judy roll her eyes. Maureen had sat there frozen for a moment, feeling the warmth of his arm against hers, before she continued quizzing Will on organic chemistry. When she made a mistake, the kids assumed she was testing them. John remained a solid force beside her.

There was something of a school-trip feel to the trip round the brewery. Maureen tailed near the back of the tour, whispering more interesting snippets to John as their guide explained the brewing process with a somewhat perfunctory air.

As they stood over the large copper kettles, John braced himself against the rail. It gave his arms a most attractive flex and Maureen stood a little too close beside him. “Want to know why they’re copper?” she murmured.

“I think you’re going to tell me,” John said with a quirked eyebrow.

“Tradition,” she told him. “They clad the outside of them in copper, but the actual kettle is made of stainless steel. They do it because that’s how it’s done.”

“You disapprove?”

“No!” She stood on her tip toes to get her hips over the edge of the rail and lean further over to get a better look at the brewing floor. When the tour guide called for them to be careful, John wrapped his fist in her belt in an exaggerated motion. “I just think it’s important we respect the reasons why we do things.”

John pulled her back over and they continued along the gangway. “I didn’t think you cared too much about tradition,” John observed.

“You can care about something and still not think it’s the right thing to do,” she responded, a little stung.

John cast her an amused look over his shoulder, and then spun so he was walking backwards. “It wasn’t a criticism.”

“I didn’t take it as one.”

John reached the rest of the crowd, and stopped without looking back over his shoulder at them. He kept his weight in the balls of his feet, like he was about to pounce, and Maureen deliberately walked into his range. “As long as we’re agreed,” he said with a smirk, and then turned neatly to listen to the tour guide, as though that was the most interesting thing in the world.

The tour ended with a tasting session. Flights of miniature glass goblets filled with each variety of the brewery’s finest were served alongside zucchini fries and mozzarella stuffed jalapenos. She found herself beside John again, and she didn’t have the luxury of pretending Liz had arranged it. John draped his arm over the back of the booth when he sat back, and it just so happened to be the side she was on.

There was a hint of possessiveness in the action, much like how Nina sat with her elbow on Mig’s shoulder, and in how Liz and Sara sat opposite one another, their legs undoubtedly entwined beneath the table. Maureen savoured a cheesy jalapeno, concentrating on the pop of heat on her tongue, the way the cheese tangled in her mouth. She had a sense of the conversation bubbling along around her, but felt no desire to jump in. In fact, there was an odd tightness in her chest, a pressure.

It would be very easy to lean into John, just a little, and to be quiet and let the conversation happen without her. It would be easy to wait for his fingers to brush her shoulder, or to nudge her elbow his ribs, or any of the half dozen or so ways she knew she had to bring them closer.

But the distance between the Maureen of today and the Maureen of two years ago felt vast. He was a nice guy, a good guy, the kind of guy who bought lunch for a harried woman and her young baby. These people were beginning to accept her into their fold, were passing her the ruby ale that they didn’t like and she did. They didn’t bat an eyelid at John’s arm, just above her shoulders.

“And in Russia, they just use a pencil,” Sam was saying.

“That’s not true.” Faces turned to her, and she smiled, sitting forwards. It took her away from John’s warmth, and she planted her elbows on the table.  “It’s a common myth. Actually, you wouldn’t want to use pencils in zero g.”

 

There wasn’t quite enough in the miniature goblets to keep her merry on the car journey home, and the feeling of sobriety only cemented the thoughts in her head. The car stopped outside her apartment block and she suggested John come up to the flat for a coffee and to say hi to Judy, and Liz’s smile was enough to make up her mind.

When the babysitter handed Judy over, the little girl’s face lit up with delight, reaching for her mother. Sometimes, looking at Judy was agony. How could she have been selfish enough to leave her baby even for a moment? She knew that the moment would pass, as Judy’s delight at seeing her faded, but for those minutes she clung to Judy, wishing with futile fervour that her baby would never again feel alone.

John was paying the babysitter, listening to her report like he was going to be there at three in the morning when Judy awoke in tears.

“I’ll put the coffee on,” he said after closing the door behind the babysitter.

Maureen’s heart constricted and she managed a thin “Wait . . . just a moment?” as she placed Judy down on the playmat. She smiled tightly at the gurgling face. This is for you, baby girl.

“I think . . .” She straightened and wiped her palms on the thighs of her jeans before turning to face him. “We should talk about what this . . . is.”

The line of John’s shoulders rose a fraction, and he squared his feet, standing between the living room and kitchenette. “Okay?” He seemed to be trying to make himself smaller.

“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” she hurried along, “And I think I maybe haven’t been . . . clear. I know I haven’t been clear. I like you a lot, as a friend. And I also find you very attractive. But you can’t be both.” She said it in a rush of breath, trying not to look at the way his brows drew together and how he straightened just a little, like he’d been hit by a gust of wind and was trying to keep his feet. “If it’s sex, then I’m okay with that, but . . .” This was harder than she had thought. She looked down at Judy on the play mat. “But you can’t be in Judy’s life if you’re going to be something temporary. Being friends isn’t a runner up prize to me, and I would be . . . very happy, if we were to remain friends. I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

John held up one hand, and she shut her mouth quickly. “To . . . check,” he said slowly, “You’ll only sleep with me if I don’t act as your friend?”

“Because,” she took a step forward, and regretted the instinct, “because if it goes south. You won’t just hurt me. Judy will lose someone in her life too. Friendship is more stable. So, we can be friends, and close the door on this, and that’s great. Or we can try something else, but it can’t be like this, where you see Judy and you look after her and you’re so good with her. Because if _I_ fuck it up,” she pressed her palm against her chest, feeling her racing heart, “Then I break _her_ heart too.”

“Hey,” John closed the gap between them in one stride, a hand going to her shoulder until she flinched away, covering her mouth with her hand to keep from letting her ragged breathing become sobs. “I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive,” John began.

She shook her head, screwing her eyes shut long enough to regain enough composure to speak. “I’m not saying you have to decide now, tonight. Even this week. But you do need to decide.”

He blinked, and looked to Judy for a moment. “Do you have a preference?”

“I don’t . . .”

“Maureen,” he interrupted her, the softness of his voice at odds with the firmness in his expression. “I want to know.”

“I . . . I’d have you here for Judy. As my friend.” Maureen wrapped her arms around her waist and pressed her lips together.

“Okay.” He nodded once, then smiled. “Then that’s what we are. There’s no question. Now. Coffee?”

 

“I can’t believe you’re leaving,” Judy announced, her eyes sparking with an anger that was all inherited from John. John flinched from her words more than he’d ever seemed to flinch away from Maureen’s. She remained sitting by the fireplace, arms tightly tucked around her waist, determined not to speak.

“But . . . why?” Will asked, blinking up at his dad with wide eyes. “Don’t you two love each other anymore?”

“Maybe just not as much as Dad likes being important and saving the world,” Judy snapped, marching around the back of the sofa.

Penny’s eyes narrowed and she fixed on Maureen. “What test did he fail this time, Mom?”

“Hey, Penny, that’s not fair,” John said sharply.

“No?” Throwing herself backwards on the sofa, Penny’s eyes were filling with tears even as she furiously blinked them away. “Then why are you leaving us?”

“I’m not - ” John hesitated. “I’m not leaving you three.”

“But you are!” Judy whirled on him, all the rage that Maureen knew she had screamed out at John in private was reflected in that pretty face. “You’re going back out there, when the world is like this, to what? To prove how brave you are? We need you!”

John licked his lips, unable to say to the kids what he’d spat to Maureen in the dark of the night, “ _You never needed me and you made that perfectly clear from day one.”_

Maureen tucked her chin down and closed her eyes, wishing more than anything that this would be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least one more chapter coming! Come follow me on tumblr too: palim-writes.tumblr.com


	4. Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family comes to town

_You: Hi everyone! Just to let you know it is Judy’s first birthday on Monday (I am a little stunned!) so to celebrate, next Saturday I’ll be having a picnic in the park. There’ll be food and cake and some nice drinks for grown ups. Everyone’s welcome. Do be aware my mother will also be there._

_Liz McGuinness: I like cake . . ._

_Nina Morales: Sorry, hun, I’ve got plans :(_

_You: It’s not a problem! I don’t expect a big attendance, but anyone who wants to come is welcome :)_

 

The chat sometimes went through periods when none of John’s squad spoke much. These quiet periods always coincided with long shifts and John being unusually taciturn. If Maureen allowed herself to wonder about it, she would conclude that there was a bi-monthly testing cycle at the base where the squad were unleashed on whatever it was they were developing, before the eggheads got it back to refine in time for the next cycle. But of course, Maureen did her very best not to speculate about the nature of the explosives that John sometimes smelled of.

While she was picking up Judy from nursery, her cell dinged once and when she glanced at its screen she was surprised to see a message from John.

_John: Hey – random question, do you still have that rollout camper bed?_

She packed Judy into the car and dialled him up, “Hey,” she said, thumbing the autopilot on. “What do you want the camper bed for?”

“Hey,” John’s voice was strained and slow, and groggy. Maureen felt a trickle of ice run through her veins.

“John, you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, sounding very far from okay.

“Where are you?”

“Home.” There was the sound of movement on the line, and then he said, “There was an accident.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Yeah. My mom’s here to keep an eye on me. The bed?”

“It’s at the postdoc’s, but I can get it back, he’s not using it any more. Do you want me to bring it tonight?”

“No . . . just . . . whenever,” John sounded like he was fading away.

“You’re sure there’s nothing else?” Maureen asked, her fingers straining against the rigid plastic of Judy’s carseat. Judy was staring up her with wide eyes.

“Thassall, seeya.”

 

She forced herself to wait until after dinner to text him the plan, that she’d bring the camperbed over tomorrow night. He responded a few hours later that that would be fine. He told her to bring Judy. The next morning, he amended that to ‘bring Judy if you want’. Maureen chewed the nail of her left middle finger down to pad.

John’s apartment was laid out not too differently from hers, although he had a separate kitchen and a smaller living room. Maureen couldn’t quite picture where he wanted the camper bed to be installed, but didn’t feel the need to ask before arriving, pulling the car up outside the apartment block. She set the autopilot to park and went to open the front door, propping it up with the well-worn wooden block that usually sat on the top step when a woman approached from the hall. She was tall and pale as ivory, with a head of curly white hair. She smiled and held out her hand. “You must be Maureen.”

“And you must be John’s mother!” Occasionally, Maureen was reminded that her early years had been spent on a farm, where cleanliness was not the most important factor when it came to clothing. She was wearing a pair of turned up jeans and a t-shirt that she could charitably say at least didn’t smell. Her hair was bound up, and there was not a lick of make-up on her face. John’s mother wore a beautiful beige cardigan that flowed over an immaculate white shirt. There were silver bangles that jingled against her skin as she shook Maureen’s hand, gripping it with perfectly manicured fingers.

“I am indeed. Etta Turner. It’s lovely to meet you at last. Let me help you.” She pointed towards the car on the street. “Is Judy with you?”

“Uh, yes. If you don’t mind, you could grab her and I’ll take the bed.” Maureen took a skip and a jump to get ahead of Etta. She opened the car and watched just long enough to see how this ethereal woman would manage with her messy daughter. Etta’s eyes lit up and she spoke to Judy in soft words with a lilting accent that Maureen couldn’t quite place. When Judy seemed to approve, Etta reached in to unbuckle her from her carseat. Maureen began to haul the camperbed out from the trunk.

Between them, they got everything important up into John’s flat. Maureen left the folded bed in the hall under Etta’s instruction, and took her daughter into the living room where John was laid out across the sofa. John’s living room was cramped and small, and Maureen had always thought the sofa would have been better under the window, though John would never relax with his back not against a wall. John seemed to take up too much room, splayed out on the cushions like he was. He was pale, and there were dark bruises under both eyes, and a split across his nose. His right arm was strapped against his chest and his right ankle in plastercast.

“Oh God,” Maureen said before she’d realised it, and her grip tightened on Judy too hard, making the little girl cry out.

Etta materialised at her side with a hand on her arm, and John winced as he tried to smile at her. “It’s uglier than it looks,” Etta said frankly, and then she smiled at Judy’s tearful face, “Don’t you worry, little one, the doctors made him all better.”

“Ba da ah?” Judy announced, and reached out a hand for John.

“C’mere, kiddo.” Easing himself up a bit, John reached out his good arm.

“She’ll hurt you,” Maureen began, but Etta just shook her head and John waved Judy over a little more. Gingerly, Maureen set Judy down on his stomach, and said, “Now be careful, Judy. He’s sore.”

Judy gazed up at her, little eyebrows pulled together, and she gently leaned forward to touch the bandaged arm across John’s chest. “Daa ba,” she said, very seriously.

“I didn’t listen to my mom,” John told her, with equal seriousness.

Maureen felt Etta’s fingers squeeze against her elbow and her gaze snapped round to the reassuring smile. “I’ve been baking, do you and Judy want cookies?”

“Mmm,” was all Maureen could manage through gritted jaw. She had the most horrible feeling that with one more kind word she’d dissolve into tears. While Etta headed for the kitchen, humming under her breath, Maureen tried to breathe steady.

“I’m okay,” John said softly, like he was still talking to Judy. His eyes were on Maureen.

Slowly, Maureen crossed her legs and flopped down to the floor, sitting with her back to the wall. “What happened?”

“I don’t remember,” John said, with enough sympathy in his voice to say _, I can’t tell you_. Maureen bit her lip.

Before it become more painful, Etta reappeared with a tray. There was a French Press with coffee brewing, the smell wafting to Maureen alongside some sweet scented cookies. “He was being an idiot, I’m sure,” Etta said, setting the tray down on the carpet and kneeling beside it to prepare the coffee.

“Mom.”

“Testing weapons of mass destruction . . .”

“ _Mom_.”

Etta shot Maureen a look, half-amused, half-frustrated. “Just wait till Judy starts answering you back,” she warned, and handed over a mug and a saucer with one of those amazing-smelling cookies.

Armed with caffeine and sugar, Maureen managed a smile. John accepted a mug of coffee from his mother and sat up a little, while Judy eagerly accepted a cookie-half and began sucking on it, grinning up at John and Etta like she had found her people.

“You’re a very clever young lady, aren’t you?” Etta was saying to Judy, brushing a hand over her curls. “Do you like that?”

Judy removed the cookie from her mouth with a wet pop and said “Aag ba!” looking down at the soggy cookie with narrowed eyes. She nodded and began chewing again.

“I’m very glad to hear it,” Etta agreed.

“What do you say, Judy?” Maureen asked, the words coming automatically.

“Gaa,” Judy said around a mouthful of cookie.

Etta smiled at her and sat beside Maureen on the floor. “She’s very bright. Did you ever teach her to sign?”

“A little,” Maureen cupped her hands around the coffee mug and tried to draw its warmth into her. “But she’s babbling a mile a minute these days.”

“Hmm. John didn’t speak till he was nearly two and even then it was a grunt.”

“MOM!” John winced, and Maureen tried not to chuckle.

“John tells me you’re a scientist?”

“Yes. Engineer, really. Aerospace engineer.” As Etta made a suitably impressed face, Maureen felt herself blush.

“And you met in the park?”

“Yes. John rescued me and Judy from being lunch-less.”

“My god, you must be a miracle worker. I’ve never known John to notice anyone before.”

John let his head thump back on the arm of the couch. “Oh my god, Mom!”

“What do you do?” Maureen asked. She broke her cookie and half and took a bite, the warm spices drifting up through her nose.

“I was in politics, mainly in pressure groups. I was part of the New Democrats in the early twenties. Never got elected though.” Etta cast her son a side-long glance. “I always think John’s trying to atone for that.”

To keep John from exploding, Maureen felt compelled to speak. “My mother was – _is_ – a farmer. Maybe I’m trying to atone for that,” Maureen teased. It made Etta laugh.

“I’m just annoyed he got himself hurt,” Etta acknowledged, and she reached up to grab her son’s shoulder.

John rolled his eyes and helped Judy pick up some of the cookie she’d crumbled into his shirt. “This is what I chose to do.”

“And I know that,” Etta said. This had the echoes of an argument that had been heard many times, and now it was just words. Maureen thought of the way she and her mother argued, and longed for something as quiet and respectful as this. “I just don’t like you being in danger,” Etta was saying. “I can’t imagine Maureen would like it if Judy became a soldier.”

Maureen looked away. The thought turned her stomach.

“But if it was Judy’s choice, what Judy really wanted,” John said firmly. He turned his attention back to the baby perched on his stomach. “You’re too clever for this life though, ain’t you honey?” When Judy looked up at him curiously, John nodded with satisfaction. “You’re going to be something much more important than a grunt, aren’t you?”

“I’m sure she will,” Etta studied her son, and Maureen studied them all. After a moment, Etta’s gaze flicked to Maureen, and she narrowed her eyes a little. “Have you been thinking about schools?”

“It’s a little early, mom,” John chided.

“Never too early,” came Etta’s response.

“A little.” Maureen felt an urge to sit between John and his mother. “But I don’t exactly know where I’ll be. The scientist’s life is not a permanent one.”

John grunted as he tried to sit up and was halted by his injuries and the one year old sitting on his stomach. “Ow, thanks,” he managed, as his mother pushed another pillow beneath his shoulders. “I didn’t know you were planning on leaving?”

“Not . . . leaving. Just aware it’s a possibility.”

Judy let forth with a stream of baby wisdom at this point, waving her cookie firmly to punctuate the last ‘aroo ga barra’, and Maureen felt one of those unexpected stabs of maternal love, where the world was eclipsed by Judy’s smile. It passed quickly enough, letting her breathe again, and she blamed hormones.

Etta began to talk about her career, of a youth spent in DC, and moving between Chicago, New York and Washington chasing what power she could. She made Maureen laugh at some stories, and gasp at tales of being on dozens of women’s marches that brought her toe to toe with fascists and far-right fundamentalists. Etta told her stories well, peppering little asides about figures Maureen had only ever watched on TV with her witty, if a little cruel, impressions. By the time Maureen had finished her coffee, Judy was yawning, and John was looking grey and tired again. They said their goodbyes, and Maureen invited Etta to Judy’s birthday if she was still around.

“I would be delighted,” Etta said.

Later that evening, while Judy was snoring softly in Maureen’s arms, Maureen’s phone buzzed.

_John: Thanks for tonight_

_John: Sorry if mom was . . . mom_

She smiled, and set her tablet with its dry report on alloy stress testing aside.

_Maureen: I had fun. So did Judy. How are you though?_

_John: Sore and grumpy._

_Maureen: I’m sorry._

_John: Don’t be._

_John: Thanks for the bed._

_Maureen: I hope Etta can sleep on it. I liked her. You’re lucky._

_John: Hmm_

_Maureen: If you come to Judy’s party you’ll meet my mom. You’ll see how lucky you are._

_John: If? No if about it!_

_John: I’ll be there if I have to bring my own IV bag_

_Maureen: I hope that won’t be the case._

_John: Nothing would stop me getting to that kid’s party. And if you need me to trip your mom up with my walking stick, just say._

 

The day of Judy’s first birthday dawned bright and early. Maureen blinked at the sunlight streaming in through a crack in the curtains, and listened out for the sounds of her mother moving in the apartment beyond, talking to Judy with her sharp voice barely muffled by the thin walls. She may have been awake, but for the first time in . . . well, probably a year, she didn’t have to get up. With her mother taking care of Judy, Maureen could remain on her back beneath the sheets, and let the day start a little easier.

This was what it would be like if she accepted help, she heard her mother’s voice say. She thought of John still limping around his apartment with Etta watching over, and smiled a little.

The thought of John lingered in her mind, like her hand lingered on her hip between the tank top and line of her underwear. His little smile when he met her gaze. She pictured him walking in the hallway with Judy, not her mother. Kissing Judy’s cheek, and then looking up to see her watching. That little smile.

Silly. She kicked the sheets aside and hopped to her feet, shaking her head from side to side and squaring her shoulders. There was a party to plan for, after all. And in hostile territory too. She twisted her hair up in a bun and tangled a plastic over it before escaping her bedroom. She did not allow her imagination to conjure John’s smile once more, not a shadow of him sprawled on the bed and watching her leave.

 

With a piercing shriek, Liz fell to the grass, brought low by her wife’s most unfair tackle. Maureen sprang over their tangle of limbs, and predictably caught her toes on Sara’s shoulders and went sprawling too.

“Foul!” John yelled from the picnic blanket, and Maureen rolled onto her back, squinting up at the sun.

“You okay, soldier?” Sara towered over her, haloed by the sun, and she held her hand out for Maureen to grab.

“Not as young as I used to be,” Maureen grunted, hauling herself to her feet.

“This might be the best first birthday party I’ve ever been to,” Liz announced, hopping to her feet unaided and swiping the beanbag from Sara’s other hand. She skipped backwards when her wife reacted and waved the bag above her head in triumph. “I include my own in this!” she shouted, pointing a finger at Maureen.

“You had a first birthday party?” Sara was distracted from the keepaway game long enough to frown at her wife. “I don’t think I did. Don’t think my parents cared enough.”

“Oh,” Maureen pouted in faux sympathy and draped her arms around Sara’s shoulders. She leaned in close. The warmth and solidity of Sara registered in some hindmost part of Maureen’s brain and she had to concentrate to keep from canting her hips forward. Sara’s left hand went to the small of Maureen’s back automatically, and she laughed at the imitation of pity, leaning some of her weight into Maureen’s frame too.

It had been a long time.

“You okay?” Sara asked quietly.

“I just realised . . . I haven’t been hugged by an adult for a very long time.” Maureen let her hand drop and took a step away, brushing her hair from her face. She took a deep breath, catching the scent of the trees by the lake, and the honeydew that trailed up the side of the boathouse. Sara was practically gilded in the sunlight, her blonde hair a messy halo around her face, and her skin glowing with the exertion.

“Hey,” Sara said, and with the same steady certainty that John possessed, she stepped into Maureen space and put her arms around Maureen’s waist, drawing her close for a long, tight embrace. Maureen couldn’t help letting out a little murmur of content, leaning into it before she let herself laugh a little. “You stay here as long as you need, ma’am,” Sara said firmly.

Liz trotted up and threw her arms around both. “I like this,” she said, and Maureen chuckled. “Why are we doing this?”

“Maureen doesn’t get enough hugs,” Sara informed her.

“Oh!” And Liz immediately circled to spoon Maureen, wrapping her arms around Maureen’s shoulder and tucking herself against her spine. “Well we’re always here for that, aren’t we?”

“Of course.”

“I love threesomes,” Liz added in a chirpy tone, and Maureen giggled.

“I didn’t mean to get touchy with your wife,” she said, turning her head to try and steal a glance back over her shoulder.

“Eh, I can understand why you would.” Liz squeezed a little tighter, and then let go, tossing the beanbag in the air as she took a few step backwards. “But I bet you can’t catch me.”

 

A combination of the sun and the game soon had Maureen sticky with sweat and dry mouthed. She left Liz and Sara lying on the grass near the lake, aware she was taking up too much of the married pair’s time. She returned to the blanket and the picnic supplies, wondering if there might still be a beer left in the cooler. John was lying in the sun with his head pillowed by a jacket. Judy was sitting on his stomach, and John and Maureen’s mothers were sitting either side. A tableau of domestic bliss, Maureen thought. As she got closer, she realised their mothers were in animated discussion. John met her gaze, and pointed her out to Judy.  

“My sister actually was tried because of that law,” Jaime was saying as Maureen reached earshot.

Etta screwed up her face, “I _am_ sorry,” she said, sympathy radiating from her.

“Hey.” Maureen knelt beside John and Judy and rested her elbow on John’s crooked knee. Judy was chewing experimentally on a strawberry. She waved the half-chewed fruit at her mother in triumph, and then offered some to John as though she thought he might feel left out.

“It was awful. Ruined her life.”

“That law ruined so many women’s lives,” Etta agreed. “It put women’s liberation back decades.”

Jaime was nodded emphatically, and Maureen could almost mouth the next words along with her, “That’s why Maureen felt compelled to keep the baby, you know.”

Maureen sat a little straighter, and John’s gaze flicked towards her.

“Uh,” Maureen could see Etta’s mental gears grinding.

Jaime continued, “It’s true. Maureen was always a good girl, she always listened to what people said. When she fell pregnant, she wasn’t going to get rid of the baby. She grew up in a world where there was no choice.”

“Mom,” Maureen said softly.

“Choice is a funny thing,” Etta began.

“When I think of what my sister went through, and how Maureen threw it all away -”

Jaime was sitting on the picnic blanket, talking like these people in her story were strangers. As though her sister was someone she had read about, and her daughter was not sitting right in front of her with her granddaughter’s lips stained red with strawberry juice.

“I don’t think this is appropriate,” Maureen began.

“Come on now, Maureen, you have to admit that everyone you’ve spoken to thinks its crazy that you moved out here as a single mother.”

“Well it’s not like I lived close to you back in Massachusetts.”

“Don’t be coy, Maureen. It’s not about how far you are from me. No one in your position would have kept a baby. The debt, you don’t have a partner, you had a promising career- you didn’t feel you had a choice, and I blame the society you grew up in.”

Judy pushed the end of the strawberry towards her grandmother, blinking in the bright sunlight. She waited for the adult to acknowledge her, to look, to say something. Yes or no. The books all spoke about this time as being crucial. This was how children learned how the world worked. That offering something means the other person responds.

“Thank you,” John said softly, taking the strawberry stem from Judy’s stick hand. “I’ll put that in the trash,” he said to her. And Judy lit up with a smile.

“Mom, when will you realise, my choice was Judy,” Maureen said, her voice tight with restrained tears.

Jaime rolled her eyes. “You could have been an astronaut.”

“But I. Chose. Judy.” Maureen wrapped her arms around her daughter’s waist and pulled her close, rising to her feet. “I will always choose Judy. If it’s between you and her, I will choose her. If it’s friends and her, I will choose _her_. If it’s friends, or partners, or space . . . I will _always_ choose her.” She turned and marched across the grass, holding Judy too tightly, and burying her face in Judy’s shoulder.

She found herself approaching the taco truck, the sizzle and spices carrying on the wind. She diverted and sat on one of the picnic benches, seating Judy on the table. “You’re getting too big to carry for long,” she murmured, smoothing a curl off Judy’s forehead.

She wasn’t surprised to find John limping up behind her, leaning heavy on his crutch and managing a grimace of a smile when Judy waved at her.

“Parents,” she murmured, as he sat heavily beside her.

“Yeah. I understand,” he agreed.

“A choice means that I chose this,” Maureen began heatedly, her fingertips tightening on Judy’s waist so much the little girl cried out and reached for John instead. With conscious effort, Maureen released her and sat back, watching her shuffle along the table towards John. “I’m not sorry about it.”

“I know,” John said softly, bracing his good arm on the table to act as a barrier for Judy, keeping her from shuffling too close to the edge. He grinned at her annoyed face, and stuck his tongue out, wincing only when she tried to grab at him. “They lived in a different time. It’s what I tell myself.”

Maureen ran her hands through her hair, then folded her arms on the table and rested her cheek on her sleeve, watching her daughter and John make faces at one another. Down the hill, Etta and Jaime were still colonising the blanket, Liz and Sara having tactfully decided to remain down by the lake shore.  

“But I don’t think it’s a choice, you know?” John was saying. “Not like, it has to be one or the other. I think it can be both. Who says you can’t have Judy and still go to space one day, or . . .”

“The world doesn’t work that way,” she mumbled.

John finally turned his attention from Judy and fixed on her. “You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met, Maureen Robinson. You’ll make it work that way.”

“And where would Judy go?” she asked, desperate to break his gaze but too gripped to look away.

“She’d go with you. Robinsons stick together.”

He was still waiting, she realised, with a nearly painful lurch of her heart. He might not wait forever, but for now, with little encouragement, he was still waiting for her to change her mind. He would, with a snap of her fingers, agree to whatever bounds she set for their relationship.

Was it ‘more’ or simply ‘different’? And how terrifying it might be to lose what this was. If she got it wrong?

“We should go back down, or I’ll be accused of being stroppy,” she murmured. “But . . . I have a sitter tonight. Maybe we should go to a bar?”

John studied her for a moment, and then reached up to brush hair from her face. Whether there was any there, or whether it was thin excuse, Maureen didn’t pause to wonder. “I’d like that,” he agreed, and sat back to let Maureen lift Judy. He got to his feet carefully, pulling his crutch beneath him.

“Ann maa, bra blahh,” Judy agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not wiki what year LiS is set in while writing this because I was too fond of my central conflict to have Jaime and Etta any older than our generation. But it's set in 2048 which puts the time of this chapter to about 2030, which works perfectly. Let's assume Etta and Jaime fought Trump and his ilk and worry about seeing history repeated. 
> 
> There's one more chapter after this. You know what that means.


	5. Anything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John has a habit of promising 'anything', when Maureen wants only a little.
> 
> (Please note, this chapter is a wee bit more 'mature' than the others - if that sort of thing doesn't float your boat . . . stroke your canoe . . . raise your anchor . . . other nautical metaphors . . . )

In between serving drinks for their friends and family, Maureen found herself standing in the kitchen, staring across the marble island countertop at all the people they would be leaving behind. Judy was standing beside the cousin she’d always had a slight crush on, trying to pretend that the cola she had snuck some whisky into was palatable in an attempt to impress. Will was, of course, sitting cross legged on the couch with one of his toys, exhausted by the grown-up conversation around him, and too young to really understand what a one-way trip meant. His daddy was coming with him now, that was all that mattered. Penny was standing nearby Sara McGuinness, absorbing the political discussion that ebbed around her like a sponge, her eyes bright and eager. Only John was a little apart from everyone else, standing by the fireplace and nursing a whisky. Maureen had no doubt he would have willingly supplied Judy with his, far better quality, stash had she only asked. But Judy would have rather swallowed her own tongue.

“You okay, dear?”

Maureen turned to smile at Etta, and then put her arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Bittersweet,” she admitted.

“I know.” Etta patted her on the back. She stepped back, pulling Maureen around to face her. “I wanted to tell you something, my darling.”

Many people did these days. Maureen listened.

“Take your beautiful children, and take them somewhere safe.” Etta’s eyes glinted with tears, and she reached a pale and soft hand towards Maureen. Maureen reached out, and gripped it hard. “Make a better world, Maureen. Do it for them.”

 

 

“Where are you going?” Jaime asked, as though she could ask it an innocuous enough fashion to make Maureen forgive her.

Maureen leaned towards her reflection in the mirror and finished a swipe of mascara across her lashes. “Just out. Celebrating. Thank you so much again,” she added, giving her mother a similarly innocent smile.

Jaime said nothing.

Maureen took an auto-cab to the office district and strutted into the bar. Denims, a clean t-shirt and a little bit of make-up was hardly enough to turn her into a super model, but she fancied she turned a few heads as she crossed the floor. John was already sitting at the bar, a glass tumbler full of whisky in his hand. He was studying it, the way the light behind the bar reflected through the ice and amber. His manner was a hairsbreadth away from brooding, really, and Maureen felt a little shiver make the hairs on her arm stand on end.

“Buy a girl a drink?” she asked, sliding onto the stool beside him.

He set the glass down and let his gaze fall from her face, past her shoulders, to her heeled sandals, and then all the way back up again, snagging on each detail. Before he spoke, his tongue wetted his bottom lip, like he was hungry. Maureen could not resist drawing in a deep breath, her body responding with adrenaline, sending blood rushing to every fingertip and toe, making her stomach turn. Fight or Flight. Or Fuck.

“What’ll you have?” John asked, his voice much lower than usual.

“Well . . .” She sat a little straighter, clasping her hands on the surface of the bar. Her back was arched, and she remembered reading something about how high heels tilted the pelvis down, curving the spine and throwing the breasts further forward, and that it was hardwired to shout ‘sex’ at other humans. Who knew if that was right. “I’m a single mother who is out by herself for the first time in . . . over a year.” She leaned in a little closer. “I’ll have what you’re having.”

John gestured to the bartender by raising two fingers, and matched her by leaning in closer. “I have very good taste in whisky. You’ll enjoy this.”

“Scottish or Irish?” she asked.

Somehow this made him smile, and he pushed the glass towards her, and when she reached for the glass his fingertips lingered against her knuckle, cold from the condensation. “Scottish. An island malt,” he said, and when she took a sip, he watched the smile on her face with a kind of pride. “You want the same?” Off her nod, he conveyed this to the bartender, and let his hand fall to her knee.

The heat of his palm through the denim was delicious, like the heat of the whisky still lingering on her tongue. “You buy a lot of women whisky?” she asked.

John raised his eyebrows a little. “No, I don’t.” He drew his hand back to his tumbler and held it. He took a drink, a long, deep drink that made the ice slosh inside the glass. His bandaged arm was still held close against his chest. “Actually, a friend made an observation today.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. She said I was emotionally unavailable and I chose women who had too much to lose, so there was no risk that they’d ever share their emotions with me. And expect any feelings from me in return.” He met her gaze. The corner of his mouth twitched into a slight grimace. “She knows me pretty well.”

Maureen hesitated for the bartender to bring her drink, and she took a drink herself, wondering what to say to this. She could hear Sara’s voice in the words, and wondered what had brought this revelation about after she had left with a sleeping baby and fractious mother.

“It’s probably all true,” John added.

“Well I’m a perfectionist who always plans for the worst, and doesn’t give anyone a chance to disappoint me.” She raised her glass and gently tapped it against his.

In a voice so low, Maureen had to lean in even closer to hear him, John said, “We might get along.”

 

Maureen would never say that Judy hampered her, but talking to John was _different_ without her. Without their friends watching, ready to tease, or Judy needing all the things that babies needed, John became a little darker, a little edgier. More grown up. More willing to admit that he needed something too.

Their conversation was not about work or childcare or their mothers, or the many variations that they usually filled their hours with. They spoke only of desires and preferences. They both liked the heat and spice of an old whisky, or a good chilli. Maureen enjoyed fall where there was a nip in the air, and John liked spring when it was beginning to get warm. John would sleep in a pair of soft, jersey track pants, and if Maureen had no guests to be concerned with, she would sleep in her bare skin alone. Maureen loved the dizzy thrill of a roller coaster, John preferred to drive fast. To be in control, he’d added.

At the bottom of her second glass of whisky, John leaned in to whisper in her ear. “I want you to stay with me tonight.” He laid his good hand on the crease of her elbow. “I want to kiss you. I want to kiss you all over.”

It was easy to find a hotel with a spare room on a weeknight in their small town. She paid with her credit card and they took the elevator in near silence, John leaning on his crutch. Maureen fiddled with the clasp of her purse.

The room was spartan, but clean, and with soft lighting. The dressing table faced the bed, with the mirror reflecting white fluffy pillows and a turned down sheet. While John stepped into the en-suite to remove the sling from his arm, Maureen raided the minibar. A tiny bottle of American whiskey was promptly mixed with cola.

“Do you want anything?” she asked.

John emerged from the bathroom and shook his head, limping towards her with as much purpose as he could muster. “I don’t want anything but you,” he said, and while she blushed and tried to look down, he cupped her cheek with his hand and lifted her chin. “Come on, don’t make me play the injury card,” he teased.

“It’s been a while,” she said.

A grin spread over his face, and then he dropped his gaze, his shoulders shaking with tiny huffs of breath that Maureen could only assume was firmly suppressed laughed. She lay her hands on his shoulders, careful not to place too much weight on his injured body, and spread her fingertips over the muscle that was beneath thin cotton. John’s good hand fell to her waist in kind, and she couldn’t keep her breath from catching.

John lifted his gaze to meet hers once more, his eyes sparkling. “I can only say: same.” A little pressure on her hip, guiding her closer towards him so their chests brushed. John leaned forward, a small distance, and kissed her. He was surprisingly soft and gentle against her lips, warm with the sun he’d been soaking up all day. She could smell sweat and laundry detergent and sun block, and strawberries. She groaned a little under her breath, enjoying the way it made his grip tighten on her side, his fingertips grazing her skin where her shirt had ridden up. Dragging her teeth lightly over his bottom lip, she leaned back, parting them with a sigh.

“Let’s get you on the bed before you fall down.”

In a slow, one-two waltz, they circled around one another and the bed. John settled with the pillows piled between his back and the headboard, and Maureen knelt atop him, removing his t-shirt like it was the casing of an engine, tracing her fingers along his ribs. They were still pock-marked with yellowed bruises, and she rocked back on her heels, frowning.

“I’ll heal,” John murmured, catching her hand and pulling it back to his chest.

She kept working, enjoying the feel of him pliant and gentle beneath her as she divested him of all clothing, leaving him bare and half-hard on the sheets. If he felt exposed he didn’t show it, studying her with his most solemn expression.

I want to break you, she thought, and find out how you tick.

Straddling his lap, Maureen began to work. With slow snakes of her spine, she teased her shirt off and let it slide down her shoulders. John watched with his bottom lip pressed against tongue, his breathing growing shallow. Maureen teased the top of her denims undone, and then hesitated, as though no longer intending to bare her skin to him.

“By God, Maureen,” he grasped at the sheets beneath him, his injured arm ending in a clenched fist against his chest.

She laughed, and shed the last of the garments in a few quick twists of her limbs, leaning over him to kiss her way along his jaw and down his neck.

Between his injured arm and leg, she might have expected John to stay a little more stationary, but his uninjured hand slipped quickly between her legs and he kissed every part of her he could reach. Maureen tugged her hair to one side, exposing the heated nape of her neck to the air. She gasped with a crook of a finger, and arched her spine when his kisses were too sharp.

John came long before she did, crying out and closing his eyes, turning his face from her. She rocked her hips with his, studying the way he screwed his eyes closed and wrinkled his nose. Gently, she eased herself up from him, disposing of the condom in the trashcan and stretching out beside him atop the sheets. John turned to face her, dragging his palm over his face to wipe sweat from his eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbled, propping himself up on his elbow.

“It’s fine,” she laid a hand on his still-bruised chest. “Just don’t go to sleep on me.”

John chuckled. “I couldn’t do that.”

After a moment, she rolled off the bed again, springing to her feet and skipping to the dressing table where her abandoned drank sat. She brought it back to the bed, where John was pulling the pillows up behind him, and she sat with her back to his chest, while he draped his arm down her front. “You’ll say if I hurt you?”

“Of course.” He brushed a kiss against her ear, and declined her offer of a sip of her drink.

Maureen could see them in the mirror. She rather thought they looked good together.

“You’re right,” John murmured, and he shifted his weight a little, wrapping his arm around her a little more so his palm cupped the swell of her belly.

“About . . . ?”

“This does change things. I didn’t want it to, but it does. Doesn’t it?”

“Hmm.” She drank, and let her head rest against John’s shoulder. He worked his fingers downwards, slipping back between her legs.

“I’d do anything for you.”

“An infinite of possibilities is too big to really grasp.” She nearly dropped the glass to her stomach as John squeezed a little, and she stretched to place the glass on the sidetable. John took the opportunity of her spread out to kiss her breasts, shifting his body down the bed a little. “No one can really promise ‘ _anything’_ ,” she continued, her voice growing thinner. “You can hope for . . . for trying to do your best, but . . . you can’t promise anything. You just have to . . . to do what you can.”

John hummed into her core and she groaned.

“There’s an old riddle . . . a hotel with infinite rooms – ahh, yes, there – and one more guest comes along. Hmmm.”

“Keep talking,” John murmured against her thigh.

“And . . . where was I?”

“One more guest.”

“And . . . and one more guest comes along. Hmm. To the infinite hotel. But all the rooms are filled, yeah? Oh yes. So where do you put the new guest? You can’t get to the end of infinite rooms? Mm. You can’t do anything . . . you can only do one thing. Ask everyone to move up – ahhhh!”

 

Inside her quarters on the Jupiter, Maureen stripped bare. John changed into a pair of soft runner bottoms, and sat on the edge of the bed, watching her apply her nightcream. “I still smell tar,” she said, sniffing at the cream on her hand with caution.

“It’s in your head.”

She rolled her eyes, and circled the bed, pulling the covers back with vengeance. “I am tired, so I hope you don’t think you’re getting any,” she teased.

John raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard that before,” he said, and crawled up the bed to meet her, making her laugh. “Ssh, the kids will hear,” he warned her in jest. But when they were both under the covers, he settled, and they lay down together. “It’s good being here again,” he murmured.

“It is,” she agreed.

“Do you remember the first time we made love?”

Maureen twisted to face him. “What made you think of that?”

“I just . . . I should have worked harder.”

“Stop beating yourself up. It is what it is.” Maureen rolled onto her back once more. Being what it was included being stranded on a dying planet and only the barest bones of an idea of how to launch a ship out of its gravity well.

“You told me a story,” John was saying, “about somebody who could do anything, had . . . infinite possibilities?”

She thought. “No, it’s the infinite hotel. It’s a logic puzzle. If you have an infinite number of rooms that are full, how do fit in one more guest? You ask everyone to move up one. There’s an infinite number of rooms so nobody runs out. Don’t promise to find the last room, just do the one little thing you can. I’ve always liked it.”

“One little thing,” John mused. In the semi-darkness, he was a solid weight in the bed beside her. She really had missed that. “I know one little thing I can do. If you can stay quiet long enough?”

Maureen bit her lip, and drew a pillow over her chest, meeting his gaze as she bit down on the corner. “I can be quiet,” she promised.

John snorted, tugging the covers from her. “And if I believe that, I’ll believe anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you could indulge me by imagining there's at least one night between the tar pit and John and Don getting blown to smithereens, I'd be grateful.


End file.
